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Mods about to get all Amazon up in this bidness. Tread lightly, buddy-pals
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Jun 17, 2015 14:02
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 13:15 |
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Is asking for pen-name advice also verboten?  I know we're not supposed to talk about super-romance details, but I thought asking for generic pen-name advice would be okay.
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Jun 17, 2015 14:02
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Business, sales, marketing - anything that could be useful to regular self-pubbers seems to be acceptable. Anything that is specific to erotica, probably best not to go there. It gets weird fast.
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Jun 17, 2015 14:25
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painted bird posted:Is asking for pen-name advice also verboten? Eh, fair enough I guess? I just knee-jerked at the specificity of the genre.
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Jun 17, 2015 14:29
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Your pen name is now Dakota May.
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Jun 17, 2015 14:56
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Well I made my pre-order deadline and got my first romance novella manuscript uploaded. Looks like I picked a good time to make the big move up and out of smut shorts.  Gimme alllllllll the Bezosbux! edit: Sean what is my spirit Trustworthy fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Jun 17, 2015 |
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Jun 17, 2015 17:27
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You shall be known as Aurora Dancer.
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Jun 17, 2015 17:47
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EngineerSean posted:You shall be known as Aurora Dancer. Sounds like you're getting these out of a "Native American Stripper" Name Generator.
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Jun 17, 2015 20:18
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:I sent an email to jeff@amazon.com asking him to make public the number of pages read in May. Fingers crossed he forwards it to the right department. If a few thousand other authors do it, maybe we'll get some good info. My phone rang just now. Hmm...I don't know anyone in Seattle? A nice lady introduced herself as a KDP Executive Manager (might have jumbled her title, I was in shock). She said "Jeff read your email" and she was calling me to let me know that she was "leading the conversations" about getting the information I asked for. She said she wasn't sure what kind of information they would be able to share, but she would be getting back to me once she knew more. She offered me her direct number but I was too humbled to accept it. I doubt anything real will come of it, but it's the highlight of my day. 
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Jun 17, 2015 21:01
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:My phone rang just now. Hmm...I don't know anyone in Seattle? A nice lady introduced herself as a KDP Executive Manager (might have jumbled her title, I was in shock). She said "Jeff read your email" and she was calling me to let me know that she was "leading the conversations" about getting the information I asked for. She said she wasn't sure what kind of information they would be able to share, but she would be getting back to me once she knew more. She offered me her direct number but I was too humbled to accept it. Jeff read your email. There's nowhere to run.
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Jun 17, 2015 21:24
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Looks like Amazon just snuck in an update which shows you your ranks in categories even if you don't make it into the top hundred.
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Jun 18, 2015 04:14
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Blog by Selena Kitt (smut author) with a little more detail about the new changes: http://selenakitt.com/blog/the-new-kindle-unlimited-what-it-means-for-authors-readers/ quote:As a publisher (and self-published author) I had some questions for Amazon about the new system. Below is a summary of what I was told. I’m providing it to you as information. Do with it what you will!
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Jun 18, 2015 14:26
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I'm gonna love watching authors put a message in the front matter that's basically ''Whenever you stop reading, please swipe to the end anyway so I can get paid.''
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Jun 18, 2015 14:28
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Jun 18, 2015 14:29
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I've come to accept that I'm going to earn less than I'm used to this past year. What I really don't like is that they're stripping away more information from us. Before we could run a promo and we'd know pretty fast if people were borrowing and getting through 10%. Now we're going to run a promo and watch a total number of pages rise. Yet its the number of people who click borrow that determines our sales rank, not pages read. And we will no longer know how many people are clicking borrow. They could provide us with both metrics, and they assuredly know. But they're not.
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Jun 18, 2015 15:37
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I love that they put that success line in quotes, just so you know it isn't something they really believe. 
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Jun 18, 2015 15:55
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Tony sounds more like your boyfriend than someone you emailed at Amazon. Anyway, this is a huge step backward, no other eBook retailer won't tell you how many people clicked the buy link.
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Jun 18, 2015 19:20
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EngineerSean posted:Tony sounds more like your boyfriend than someone you emailed at Amazon. Anyway, this is a huge step backward, no other eBook retailer won't tell you how many people clicked the buy link. Someone over on DD got an email from an Amazon rep since that now claims we definitely will be told the number of borrows AND the number of pages read. Backtrack? Correction? Miscommunication? Lie? Who knows?!
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Jun 18, 2015 20:03
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:Someone over on DD got an email from an Amazon rep since that now claims we definitely will be told the number of borrows AND the number of pages read. Backtrack? Correction? Miscommunication? Lie? Who knows?! I would guess that it's the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing but I hope that it's a backtrack.
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Jun 18, 2015 20:28
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What is this "Would you like to share this release with your Amazon Followers?" email I just got from Amazon? I clicked the link to find out more but it wasn't very helpful. It just says that I can send a quick message to my Amazon followers about an upcoming release (but they emailed me about a book I already released over the weekend). Does it come with any identifiable material, or does it just tag it with my pen name? Is there a way to see how many followers I have for that pen name? I don't think the title has done particularly well, yet I haven't got any emails about this for my other titles - is this a new thing they're trialing or have I just never had followers before?
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Jun 18, 2015 21:17
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Same email for me as same exact questions. I chose not to do it in case it shared to my whole gmail contacts list or something
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Jun 18, 2015 21:49
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EngineerSean posted:I would guess that it's the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing but I hope that it's a backtrack. For any organization the size of Amazon, if in doubt assume a fuckup.
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Jun 19, 2015 01:07
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I would love it if the 'Amazon followers' thing was their attempt at making a mailing list.
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Jun 19, 2015 08:47
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Is there even a way to know how many people are following you on Amazon?
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Jun 19, 2015 11:12
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You don't need to know that sort of thing. Just sit at your desk and type words and Amazon will handle everything. In fact, forget about sales and even pages. Amazon will just put a certain amount of money into your bank account every so often and you'll know if they think you're doing well or not based on the size of that amount.
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Jun 19, 2015 11:27
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It doesn't tie to your email account or anything, its an email sent direct from Amazon to accounts who have clicked this button:
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Jun 19, 2015 13:29
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I've never even followed as a customer before, does it automatically advise you when new books by that author come out? Or is it literally just a mailing list where you have the option of sending a brief email (upon offer by amazon) to the people who have signed up to it?
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Jun 19, 2015 13:32
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Sulla-Marius 88 posted:I've never even followed as a customer before, does it automatically advise you when new books by that author come out? Or is it literally just a mailing list where you have the option of sending a brief email (upon offer by amazon) to the people who have signed up to it? It's supposed to automatically advise you when a new book is out but it's kind of broken. It doesn't do it for all releases and then seems to send like 3 or 4 at once. You don't get any input on the email that is sent out.
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Jun 19, 2015 13:42
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It also doesn't function whatsoever if the book is in super-romance.
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Jun 19, 2015 13:55
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EngineerSean posted:It's supposed to automatically advise you when a new book is out but it's kind of broken. It doesn't do it for all releases and then seems to send like 3 or 4 at once. You don't get any input on the email that is sent out. I follow my own pen names, just to see what kind of notifications Amazon sends out on my behalf. They've been very inconsistent, and the most recent email I received was a NEW RELEASE! notification for a book I released like five months earlier. 
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Jun 19, 2015 21:25
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Trustworthy posted:I follow my own pen names, just to see what kind of notifications Amazon sends out on my behalf. They've been very inconsistent, and the most recent email I received was a NEW RELEASE! notification for a book I released like five months earlier. At first they tried to tell me it was that way due to author feedback and when I rolled my eyes and said that most authors would want it to send out an email within one week of it making it through the publishing process, then they said "well there has been some issues..."
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Jun 20, 2015 08:47
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I think one of the key issues is that if you publish two books from the same login with the same author name, it doesn't assume those books are by the same person. Amazon's whole author system is pretty terrible from an automation perspective.
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Jun 20, 2015 08:52
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Bobby Deluxe posted:I think one of the key issues is that if you publish two books from the same login with the same author name, it doesn't assume those books are by the same person. Amazon's whole author system is pretty terrible from an automation perspective. according to amazon there are only seven authors
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Jun 20, 2015 08:57
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Legend has it there are eight, but the secret forbidden author made too much money and had to be silenced.
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Jun 20, 2015 10:29
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Legend has it there are eight, but the secret forbidden author made too much money and had to be silenced. Sounds legit
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Jun 20, 2015 18:23
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Amazon changed how reviews work yesterday. Your total star rating will now be influenced by factors such as newness of the reviews, whether others found them helpful and if the purchase was verified. These factors will also affect the order in which reviews appear on your product.
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Jun 20, 2015 19:30
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quote:Enhancement to Amazon Customer Reviews ^^^ Related text. Additional bold-text is probably mine. 
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Jun 20, 2015 20:10
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Amazon is doing all kinds of cool things lately!
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Jun 20, 2015 20:23
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Next up: Sponsored search recommendations. "Showing results for 'Stephen King new releases.' Click here to continue searching for 'indie horror novels.'" "You searched for 'new romances.' Did you mean 'Fifty Shades of Gray Redux' ? "
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Jun 20, 2015 20:40
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 13:15 |
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Giving more weight to verified purchase reviews puts a ding in trying to bolster reviews by giving out free copies and ARCs. Interesting.
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Jun 20, 2015 20:49
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